Virginmedia customer service

mrposhman

I phoned up Virginmedia to cancel my broadband service at the end of my 12 month contract on 10th July when my contract expired on 18th August so easily inside the 30 days limit they provide.

Apparantly this was processed, yet on 19th August I received my email informing me that my next bill was available for viewing. This showed NO discount for the reduction in service and also still showed no online billing discount which I requested on 3rd July!!

I phoned them up and they said that there was a refund on my account and this would be taken account of before the payment was due on my DD so I was fairly convinced that my payment would be processed correctly.

Yet today the payment was taken at the full rate excluding any discounts including excluding any online billing discounts.

Again I phoned up, got nothing out of the indian guy so got put through to customer relations to a guy who seemed far from happy to have to settle customer disputes.

He told me, that apparantly whoever processed my refund didn't do it correctly (how many ways are there to process a refund) so it was still showing on my account but the payment run ignored it. Can anyone tell me what the use of putting a refund on the system but not putting it forward for processing!! Seemes ridiculous to me!!

Anyway, I asked what they were going to do about it, and he said nothing, I had to wait till the next billing run to receive my refund!!

The reason - They can't process refunds as they don't have a licence, so they have a licence to take but not give back when taken incorrectly. How absurd!!

Anyway, I'm looking for some advice, I'm writing to them to inform them of their atrocious customer services, should I mention that I will also be sending a copy to the ombudsman or the regulator?

I think having to ask 3 times for a refund that should have been processed automatically is quite appaling to be honest and clearly isn't right for the customer.

Also, does anyone know if Sky do a package where you don't have to sign up to a 12 month contract.

pottsy_79

We had a similar situation with Virgin media. We downgraded our services giving them 30 days notice, yet our bill was higher than ever. When we rang them they said the same thing - there was a discount/refund showing on the account and it would be taken in to account before the bill was due. We were fortunate enough to not have a DD set up, but even on the day I paid the bill they were still asking for the full amount, needless to say I didn't pay the full amount and worked out exactly what I should have owed!

smcaul

As you have paid via DD, just ring your bank up and tell them Virgin have taken an unauthorised amount as per the DD guarantee your bank should refund it immediately.

As for getting any sense out of Virgin,good luck! I managed to get through to someone eventually when I had a problem, but it took a while. And you have a private message

markelock

virgin are useless. typical utility bill, which takes far too long to breakdown and understand, debits here, credits to offset the debits, complete waste of time.

when it comes to the call centre, if you get india you might as well hang up, get the right person and it all makes sense.

cancel everything you can, they'll offer a heavy reduction then go with that. it's got to be better than sky